Saturday, April 30, 2005

View Askew

(No, this is not about Kevin Smith's rave for Revenge Of The Sith. We'll get to that film eventually.)

A recent survey on media bias showed 48% of the public think the news is too liberal, 30% too conservative and 12% too liberal and conservative(?). Nevertheless, the same survey, from the Missouri School of Journalism, says 67% find TV and print journalism "credible" and more than half find it "trusthworthy."

I found the whole survey suspect. Lately, it seems you can't trust polls until you find out the actual wording of the questions. It'd be a shame if a bias study had to be thrown out for bias.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Lately, it seems you can't trust polls until you find out the actual wording of the question"?

LAGuy, apparently you were credulous previously. When did you arrive at this pajama party? This is a bit ironic, since the rise of blogs did not suddenly create a lack of media credibility. Blogs arose, largely, because media have long lacked credibility, and suddenly a technological door opened that has made them pay a fatal price for it.

I think there's a quote around here from some mainstream media guy that rests on that point.

4:26 AM, April 30, 2005  
Blogger LAGuy said...

Blogs arose because media lacked credibility? People have always written letters, kept journals, talked over the back fence and, more recently, shot emails back and forth. Blogs arose because technology made them possible.

I'm glad blogs are around to keep Big Media on their toes, but let's not overrate them. TV hurt newspapers more than blogs ever did. And talk radio was a much bigger challenge to "media bias."

The story of blogs is yet to be written, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

11:56 AM, April 30, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

My definition of journalism is more broad than yours. While it's common for people to say journalism is important because an informed populace is necessary for democracy, yadda, yadda, my definition of it is precisely that people are interested in each other, for reasons noble or not. Which is to say, it's just a formalized form of talking over the back fence.

9:53 AM, May 01, 2005  

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